A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems | Page 3

with warm
new life and gladdening flame. Fair befall the fair green close that lies
below the mill!
Softlier here the flower-soft feet of refluent seasons glide, Lightlier
breathes the long low note of change's gentler call. Wind and storm and
landslip feed the lone sea's gulf outside, Half a seamew's first flight

hence; but scarce may these appal Peace, whose perfect seal is set for
signet here on all.
Steep and deep and sterile, under fields no plough
can tame, Dip the cliffs full-fledged with poppies red as love or shame,
Wide wan daisies bleak and bold, or herbage harsh and chill; Here the
full clove pinks and wallflowers crown the love they claim. Fair befall
the fair green close that lies below the mill!
All the place breathes low, but not for fear lest ill betide, Soft as roses
answering roses, or a dove's recall.
Little heeds it how the seaward
banks may stoop and slide,
How the winds and years may hold all
outer things in thrall, How their wrath may work on hoar church tower
and boundary wall. Far and wide the waste and ravin of their rule
proclaim
Change alone the changeless lord of things, alone the same:
Here a flower is stronger than the winds that work their will, Or the
years that wing their way through darkness toward their aim. Fair befall
the fair green close that lies below the mill!
Friend, the home that smiled us welcome hither when we came, When
we pass again with summer, surely should reclaim
Somewhat given
of heart's thanksgiving more than words fulfil-- More than song, were
song more sweet than all but love, might frame. Fair befall the fair
green close that lies below the mill!
A SEA-MARK.
Rains have left the sea-banks ill to climb:
Waveward sinks the
loosening seaboard's floor:
Half the sliding cliffs are mire and slime.

Earth, a fruit rain-rotted to the core,
Drops dissolving down in
flakes, that pour
Dense as gouts from eaves grown foul with grime.

One sole rock which years that scathe not score
Stands a sea-mark in
the tides of time.
Time were even as even the rainiest clime,
Life were even as even
this lapsing shore,
Might not aught outlive their trustless prime:

Vainly fear would wail or hope implore,
Vainly grief revile or love
adore
Seasons clothed in sunshine, rain, or rime
Now for me one

comfort held in store
Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.
Once, by fate's default or chance's crime,
Each apart, our burdens
each we bore;
Heard, in monotones like bells that chime,
Chime the
sounds of sorrows, float and soar
Joy's full carols, near or far before;

Heard not yet across the alternate rhyme
Time's tongue tell what
sign set fast of yore
Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.
Friend, the sign we knew not heretofore
Towers in sight here present
and sublime.
Faith in faith established evermore
Stands a sea-mark
in the tides of time.
THE CLIFFSIDE PATH.
Seaward goes the sun, and homeward by the down
We, before the
night upon his grave be sealed.
Low behind us lies the bright steep
murmuring town,
High before us heaves the steep rough silent field.

Breach by ghastlier breach, the cliffs collapsing yield:
Half the
path is broken, half the banks divide;
Flawed and crumbled, riven and
rent, they cleave and slide
Toward the ridged and wrinkled waste of
girdling sand
Deep beneath, whose furrows tell how far and wide

Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.
Star by star on the unsunned waters twiring down.
Golden
spear-points glance against a silver shield.
Over banks and bents,
across the headland's crown,
As by pulse of gradual plumes through
twilight wheeled,
Soft as sleep, the waking wind awakes the weald.

Moor and copse and fallow, near or far descried.
Feel the mild wings
move, and gladden where they glide:
Silence, uttering love that all
things understand,
Bids the quiet fields forget that hard beside

Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.
Yet may sight, ere all the hoar soft shade grow brown,
Hardly reckon
half the lifts and rents unhealed
Where the scarred cliffs downward
sundering drive and drown, Hewn as if with stroke of swords in

tempest steeled,
Wielded as the night's will and the wind's may wield.

Crowned and zoned in vain with flowers of autumn-tide,
Soon the
blasts shall break them, soon the waters hide,
Soon, where late we
stood, shall no man ever stand.
Life and love seek harbourage on the
landward side:
Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.
Friend, though man be less than these, for all his pride,
Yet, for all his
weakness, shall not hope abide?
Wind and change can wreck but life
and waste but land:
Truth and trust are sure, though here till all
subside
Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.
IN THE WATER.
The sea is awake, and the sound of the song
of the joy of her waking is rolled
From afar to the star that recedes,
from anear
to the wastes of the